Rhomberg builds track for Malmö Citytunnel

The new Citytunnel in Malmö is the next major step to connect the City centres of Malmö (Sweden) and Copenhagen (Denmark) even closer. The new line, connected to the Öresund-bridge and the Malmö Main Station will go underneath the centre of Malmö, crossing sensitive areas with hospitals, theatres and private houses and will avoid a change of directions during the stop at Malmö Central.

Rhomberg Bahntechnik has awarded the contract to construct the entire slab track type HA-LVT (high attenuation low vibration track), which has been chosen to minimise the vibrations of the trains which pass the buildings in little depth. The slab track portion of the project is about 13km, whereof 11km are in a single track tunnel. Six turnouts and a crossing in slab track will be installed as well.

The main challenges in this project are given by the short construction time in combination with very limited access to the tunnels and to the area of the main railway station, Malmö C which lies in the City centre of Malmö. The whole logistic supply during the construction will therefore be done railbound from the southern portal, Hyllie, to avoid works and transports in the in the City as much as possible.

Due to the experienced gained in other projects – most important the 35km-long Lötschberg Base Tunnel in Switzerland – Rhomberg Bahntechnik developed for the Malmö Cityunnel a new concrete supply chain which is running on the adjusted track, where the track has been positioned with an accuracy of less than a millimeter. The application of this unique method is just possible by using Rhomberg patents like adjustment devices and a light gauge-bar, which allow in spite of railbound logistics a guaranteed steady and stable position of the track and precise rail inclination. For survey Rhomberg will use their reliable in-house developed equipment Hergie®, which has been further improved for the project to ensure a high precision positioning and documentation of the new railway line.

The most recent achievement is the heart piece for transport and casting of the concrete. Therefore Rhomberg’s R&D designed and constructed a moving concrete unit with a length of more than 400m, using state-of-the-art technology for concrete transport and smart solutions for the usage of the already built railway line. The system allows a concrete supply without interruptions. Further on the concrete recipe has been adopted the special use.

The ‘concrete train’, which will also be used in future projects, has been tested step-by-step in Austria to ensure a reliable functionality of each module. These full-scale-tests during the summer under different extreme conditions guarantee a filed system for the project.

In this project, Rhomberg Bahntechnik is subcontracted by the Swedish company Banverket Produktion who took over the contract to finish the new railway connection to the existing line.

One of the main reasons to award the contract has been the high quality of the offer and the solutions for the slab track construction showing environmentally friendly methods and high performance rates. These figures have been considered and evaluated in the tendering process. The other reason was the vast experience and good references which had been gained by recently building slab track of the same type where the good quality had been confirmed by independent measurements of clients in different countries all over the world.

The project started in September 2009, all preparations have been completed in time and the tight schedule has been kept. Interfaces with other activities have been determined in detail. There Rhomberg could share the vast experience on logistic solutions which have been made in Switzerland during the time of construction in the Lötschberg Base Tunnel. These core competences helped a lot to improve and accelerate the scheduled building programme and established a real partnership in between, the railway authorities of Citytunnelproject, the client Banverket Produktion and the Rhomberg Bahntechnik Group

The new Citytunnel in Malmö, representing the first real slab track line in Sweden, will be a next important project showing the reliability and the advantage of Rhomberg’s high quality solutions. Rhomberg Bahntechnik is proud to be able to prove this in a way every passenger will feel by using the train in the Malmö city area during the next decades.